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Blakeview: Time Saver

Nowadays you can find a convenience store on almost every corner in the country, but one way to tell you're a New Orleanian is if you call it a "Time Saver." That means you've been around long enough to know the city's first convenience store chain, which is now defunct.

Time Saver was founded in 1954 at Carrollton Avenue and Oak Street. The Time Saver chain was owned by L.C. Montgomery Jr., who later owned The Joy Theater. In 1956, within two years of its founding, the chain had opened five Time Savers: at Carrollton Avenue and Oak Street, Metairie Road, Gentilly Boulevard, Canal Boulevard and Jefferson Highway. The number of stores grew to more than 120, fondly remembered for a wide range of products, the stores' red and white triangle logo and the Icee frozen drinks sold at the stores.

In the 1980s, TV commercials starring local actresses Becky Allen and Shirl Cieutat advertised the chain's po-boy sandwiches, as made by the fictional characters Rosemary and Anna Mae. In 1978, the company was acquired by the Kansas-based Dillon Companies, which was purchased by retail and grocery giant Kroger in 1983. In 1995, the Time Saver chain was sold to E-Z Serve, which dropped the Time Saver name in favor of
its own. That company filed bankruptcy in 2002 and sold its stores to
pay creditors.